o
with expelling leprosy from England. The affliction has become
confined to countries where the Potato is not grown.

Boiled or steamed Potatoes should turn out floury, or mealy, by
reason of the starch granules swelling up and filling the cellular
tissue, whilst absorbing the albuminous contents of its cells. Then
the albumen coagulates, and forms irregular fibres between the
starch grains. The most active part of the tuber lies just beneath the
skin, as may be shown by pouring some tincture of guaiacum over
the cut surface of a Potato, when a ring of blue forms close to the
skin, and is darkest there while extending over the whole cut
surface. Abroad there is a belief the Potato thrives best if planted on
Maundy Thursday. Rustic names for it are: Taiders, Taities, Leather
Coats, Leather Jackets, Lapstones, Pinks, No Eyes, Flukes, Blue
Eyes, Red Eyes, and Murphies; in Lancashire Potatoes are called
Spruds, and small Potatoes, Sprots.

The peel or rind of the tuber contains a poisonous substance called
"solanin," which is dissipated and rendered inert when the whole
Potato is boiled, or steamed. Stupes of hot Potato water are very
serviceable in some forms of rheumatism. To make the [445]
decoction for this purpose, boil one pound of Potatoes (not peeled,
and divided into quarters.) in two pints of water slowly down to one
pint; then foment the swollen and painful parts with this as hot as it
can be borne. Similarly some of the fresh stalks of the plant, and its
unripe berries, as well as the unpeeled tubers cut up as described, if
infused for some hours in cold water, will make a liquor in which
the folded linen of a compress may be loosely rung out, and applied
most serviceably under waterproof tissue, or a double layer of dry
flannel. The carriage of a small raw Potato in the trousers' pocket
has been often found preventive of rheumatism in a person
predisposed thereto, probably by reason of the sulphur, and the
narcotic principles contained in the peel. Ladies in former times had
their dresses supplied with special bags, or pockets, in which to
carry one or more small raw Potatoes about their person for
avoiding rheumatism.

If peeled and pounded in a mortar, uncooked Potatoes applied cold
make a very soothing cataplasm to parts that have been scalded, or
burnt. In Derbyshire a hot boiled Potato is used against corns; and
for frost-bites the mealy flour of baked potatoes, when mixed with
sweet oil and applied,